It's taken a while but today, NVIDIA is finally giving all those Windows 8 users who have GeForce graphics cards on their desktop PCs some love. In an updated blog post, NVIDIA has now released the 302.80 beta versions of the desktop GeForce drivers (32-bit version and 64-bit version) for the Windows 8 Release Preview.

The same day that the Windows 8 Release Preview was launched by Microsoft, NVIDIA said it would release its WHQL-based Windows 8 compatible GeForce graphics driver versions sometime in the next week. However, NVIDIA later announced that the release of those drivers was delayed. These new beta drivers that were made available to download today are not yet WHQL certified. Furthermore, notebooks that use NVIDIA graphics chips won't get their own beta Windows 8 drivers until Friday.

The release notes for the 302.80 beta drivers reveal some of the known issues with this release, including some "flickering/shimmering within several DirectX applications when launched with FXAA turned on from the NVIDIA Control Panel" with the GeForce GT 520 graphics card in the 32-bit and 64-bit versions.

Keep in mind that this driver release is just for the Windows 8 Release Preview and should not be installed on a PC if you still have Windows 7, Vista or XP installed.